Hundredth Monkey | Meditation

While we encouraged Monkey-meditators to follow their own path, a specific meditation method was outlined in the early days of the project, and this is it.

The M100 meditation usually lasts 20-40 minutes. When in a group, it begins with holding hands or a group-attuning, while sitting in a circle. Once the circle has settled down, no one may enter. In a link-up, we spend 10 minutes slowing down and getting ready, aligning with the other Monkeys elsewhere who are meditating with us. Each session, we work with a specific arena of world crisis, need or change - these are world cancers threatening humanity and its progress, reconciliation and healing. This is a form of 'remote viewing', though it is interactive, more than just viewing.

The emphasis is on strengthening worldwide awareness of choice and on dissolving public indifference and sense of impotence. We are not specifically working for peace or freedom: it is up to people themselves to make the best of their situation within the constraints of what is genuinely possible. Our work can open windows of free-will for victims, help perpetrators be aware of what they're truly doing and awaken public awareness to the core issues at stake, from within - without judgement, bias or 'cultural imperialism'. This meditation is adapted from instructions from the Council of Nine, yet it is universal, drawing benign influences into specific arenas and problem areas. 'Higher powers' need our assistance to 'step-down' spiritual-cosmic energies into the human sphere. This is how we do it.

Stage one. After getting settled and centred, go, in your imagination, to find someone involved in the chosen crisis in question. This can be any relevant person, thing or situation. Scan around to find someone or a situation seeking assistance, or make a prayer to be directed to wherever your input is needed. Keep it specific, humanistic and realistic. For example, this could involve an old man at a cafe, a village child, a soldier, an aid worker, a scientist, a diplomat or the president's wife - follow your intuitions. Sit and be with that person or situation, to witness fully whatever is being experienced by the person or people involved, in real-life terms - their hopes, fears, regrets, pain, love, dilemmas and the facts of their situation. Explore this awhile, in its details, without judgement or analysis. Feel what's involved. Operate like an observer or a counsellor, bearing witness and adding your own detached objectivity, without intervening too much in any person's life-process, except when asked.

Stage two. After 5-10 minutes of observation and/or dialogue, watch for, or bring in, some change-factor which awakens this person to new opportunities inherent in their situation. Or, in connection with 'higher powers', help bring to them new light or inner assistance to change their situation or their feelings about it. Stay with this awhile, noting the person's response to what's happening, and perhaps assisting them in adjusting to it. For example, I once 'met' a Bosnian boy who was given a football. This simple event reminded him how to play, starting him off on a new path in life! Another time, I met the Nigerian dictator's mistress, who realised that she could get through to the compassion in his heart in unique ways. Or, help a person receive healing or new strength 'from above' - or follow your 'guidance'. However, make sure you're not imposing anything which is unwanted or cannot be utilised.

Note the thoughts, emotions and sense of options arising for the person you're working with. Help them sort it through and clarify their position. Give simple supportive insight and encouragement - make sure they understand! Stay with this for some minutes, going through any details or implications which seem necessary to look into - take care to encourage moderate, realistic, healing feelings and actions, working within the person's own frame of reference. Don't push people beyond their capacities, and do encourage them to think things through fully and sensibly! Keep it real - many ordinary people usually have little spiritual experience, and fear and conditioning-patterns are important to respect.

They might choose to go home from war and restore normality, they might have a simple positive idea or a deep urge for change, a trust-breakthrough or a specific plan of action - let it arise from them or 'from above' and help ease it through. Encourage them without pushing them into actions which won't work, or into danger or rashness. Observe all issues and conflicts arising, helping the person clarify things and overcome doubts and fears, as if you're there with them. This concerns critical inner transitions where change is forged. It affects a person's capacity to receive inner support.

Stage three. Visualise the person stepping forward to create a changed reality in their own or in others' lives, arising from their insights or decisions. Watch them doing it, 'hold their hand' if necessary and be with them during their tight moments of risk or courage. If a change of strategy becomes necessary, help them through it. See how the situation develops and how it affects others and the wider world. In the examples above, the Bosnian boy initiated football matches between soldiers - he thus became a peace-builder. The mistress managed to draw out the dictator's own need for love, surreptitiously helping him soften up and become more forgiving toward his fellow nationals. Observe and assist the issues and outcomes involved, for all those affected by them. See how positivity or new impulses can infect others and empower them to act positively too. This is the key to this meditation - one person's progress or breakthrough empowers others, or can act as a key event in a larger situation. Sometimes the significance of the situation isn't obvious - yet it might influence events seven years later!

If you're 'downloading light' into a situation, make sure you assist in the human process of receiving light and making constructive use of it - you're probably better at working with human ways than angels are!

If things appear to go 'wrong', you can transform this into some form of 'right'. If your contact gets killed, their death can bring a turning-point for others or a personal breakthrough for the victim, or the sacrifice might be noticed by the world. It takes only a shift of perspective to transform 'wrong' into positive outcomes.

Finally, bring matters to a close. Check that all is as complete as you can make it. If incomplete, do whatever is needed to work it through to a satisfactory outcome. Wish your distant friend(s) well, wrap up your meditation in a bubble of goodwill and offer it to the universe to take care of. Then say goodbye to your new friend(s). Come back to yourself at your own speed, feel your body, sense your environment and gradually surface again. Don't hurry to finish - go at your own speed. Please remain quiet until everybody is back (otherwise you might disturb something crucial). At M100 events, a gentle chime will be sounded to end the meditation, but 'wake up' at your own speed - the chime is simply to give an awareness of time.

This meditation is done to help our fellow humans establish clearly that we do all have choice, even in the most difficult of circumstances. As you get used to this technique, use your intuition to 'play it by ear' and to follow your commonsense or inspiration.

This meditation can at times be very realistic and exceptionally profound. Sometimes one can follow up such an experience with a repeat visit to your friend(s) or situation, to see whether there are further matters to assist in.

If you do not wish to adhere to this method, you may equally do any silent meditation or visualisation which works in harmony with it.

To recap, the meditation contains three main stages:

appreciating the reality of the current situation;

awakening to new possibilities, and,

manifesting these in constructive actions.

Other forms of meditation

Most other meditations in the planetary healing area are more general, global and metaphysical. These can include visualising planet Earth bathed in light or surrounded by a protective rainbow, or praying for peace or for other fruitful outcomes. Such meditations do contribute to a build-up of positive energy in the planet or humanity as a whole. However, it's a question of how much such energy 'gets through'. The M100 meditation is rather like a surgical operation to work on one part of the body which threatens the whole body - and surgical operations are valuable when it is too late for more holistic healing methods. Such an operation removes the worst manifestation of a problem, freeing the body's natural healing capacity to work more generally once the major blockage is removed. However, all kinds of well-motivated, sincere meditation are valid and useful.

Basic meditations

If you're unaccustomed to meditation, it's worth developing some basic practices. Two (of many) good books give guidelines to some basic practices: Moon over Water by Jessica Macbeth and A Gradual Awakening by Steven Levine (both from Gateway Books).

Some tips. Buddhist Vipassana or 'mindfulness of breathing' is form-free and universal, a very good starting-place and something to return to when unstable. Sit comfortably and calm down. Let your attention settle inside your nose, observing the sensation of your natural in-breaths and out-breaths and simply keeping your attention on that sensation. If at any time your mind wanders onto intervening thoughts or disturbances, simply say "thinking, thinking..." or "worrying, worrying..." or "aching, aching...", and pull your attention back to the sensation of the passage of air through your nostrils. That's it! Stay with it for 20-30 minutes. Alternatively, you can focus on the rising and falling of your chest. Just breathe naturally - don't do breathing. All problems sort themselves out without needing to be thought through. See A Gradual Awakening.

One simple Tibetan variation is this. For ten minutes or so, breathe in purifying light and breathe out darkness and impurities. This is healing and cleansing. Then, for 10-20 minutes, breathe in the world's darkness and pain and breathe out light from within to heal the world.

Other small 'tricks' which can be useful:

feel yourself being where and how you are, feel what you're sitting on, feel your back, and just be for a while;

visualise a point of light in your heart, letting it irradiate you with light, healing, clarity - colours are useful;

see a point of light (sun, cross, star, angel) above the top of your head, and let fizzling light or colour cascade down around and within you - dwell with this awhile;

feel yourself inside a cocoon of energy/light/colour which cleanses and protects you;

open the top of your head like a chalice, or envision a pointed cone or wizard's hat above you, funnelling light, energy or insight into your whole being;

let a cord unravel downwards from your solar plexus to hook into the Earth's core - tweak it taut and stay with it awhile - then let a point of light to rise from your heart to a point above your head, then join them, and let a cascade of light or insight flush down into and through you;

move upwards slowly from the root to the crown centre, imbuing each chakra with rainbow light and opening them up - red at the base to violet at the crown (ROYGBIV) - noting thoughts-feelings arising at each chakra. Later, move back down, closing each chakra;

ask Great Beings (however you see them) to bless you, say a prayer to re-dedicate your life, and stay in stillness, open to receiving energy and transceiving it to the world;

simply open yourself out, like an empty cylinder, channelling energy through to the world;

at the end, give thanks, seal everything you have opened and dedicate all benefits to all living beings - put in a prayer or affirmation for you or people you know.

Whatever you do, give it its proper time before passing on. Adopt one simple method to return to any time you wander off and lose track. Always emerge slowly from meditation. A candle, incense or a crystal can help. These are but a few possibilities - there are many basic systems. It helps to have a basic method you can use as a foundation, for when sitting in a bus or as a fall-back during difficult times. Keep it simple. Just do it!

General notes

M100 is an open, non-binding, multifaith group with wide-spectrum humanistic and spiritual beliefs. We do not insist on adoption of uniform methods or ideas. You are not even obliged to do meditation - be yourself. We seek simply to be unanimous in intent and service. We work with a mirroring collective of benign universal forces (the 'Monkey-angels'), who are grateful for any sincere assistance they get! We do not even insist that you share this metaphysical perspective!

The more you do it, the more that meditation works. It isn't a Big Thing. If you get booming brains, aching backs or if you think you're no good at it, that's perfectly normal! No one is a saint, and 'God' or 'higher powers' don't demand perfection - though sincerity and self-forgiveness do help! If you feel you aren't doing well, just carry on. More happens in our psyche than we're aware of, and we are more widely connected than we believe!